Us, In The End
by Clarra-Night
Summary: SPOILERS for Infinity War. Set during and post-Infinity War. Loki and Thor angst. Can't really say much else in the summary without giving spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**ALLERGEN WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR**

 **As usual, it's been far too long for me since I've posted anything, but, as usual, I hope you're still with me.**

 **I started this fic as soon as I finished watching Infinity War without scrolling through fanfictions already out there – hopefully this one isn't too close to what anyone else has already written, though I get the feeling that unfortunately might be. I mean, just as I recently finished writing the first few chapter drafts,** **I find this**

 **/ / w w w . p i nterest . c o m . a u /pin/750482725379702187/**

 **which pretty much sums up my entire story, dammit (DON'T go into the link until after finishing this story if you don't want fic spoilers, please!)** **Also, apologies if some of the quotes aren't word-perfect – I watched Infinity War once and haven't been able to since.**

 **"I assure you, Brother, the sun will shine on us again." – frick, Loki's line has haunted me since seeing Infinity War, albeit that was only a week ago. Though it's not showing any signs of waning any time soon, either. I find what he said strangely beautiful, as well as heartbreaking given the context. Same for the insistent way he emphasises the word 'will' – anyone else hear that?**

 **('Frick' wasn't the F word I've been thinking since Infinity War, by the way)**

 **I guess this fic almost works as a sequel to The Things I Miss, The Thing I Don't (my multi-chapter based immediately post-Ragnarok)? But can be standalone after seeing Infinity War, as can TTIMTTID after seeing Ragnarok. But** **this story is ignoring Avengers 4, being just a 'what if?' fic – if Loki had truly died, if Thor had lived on, and if there wasn't any messing around with Time to save anyone (I've nowhere near the creativity or analytical ability to predict the canon events we're in store for).**

 **Also! I've got a softer one-shot and a lighter-humoured multi-chapter on the go too that I'm pretty excited to write, but this one takes precedence.**

 **Again, to people who have been reading my other fics over the past months since I'd last posted, THANK YOU from the depths of that weakly pulsing thing that is my heart after seeing Infinity War.**

 **And as always, enjoy.**

* * *

 _He has been near Death before. Like a child dancing near the Rainbow Bridge's edge, almost taunting it to try and take him. But he had always had some kind of safety net in place._

Your birthright was to die

 _Now here It is. Finally._

Scared, Loki? _His mind taunts him back._

 _He is afraid to greet It for real now._

 _(He doesn't want to die, he wishes he wouldn't, not just yet, he never really did want – )_

For Thor?

 _…_

 _…Thor..._

 _…_

 _He charges towards Death with everything he has._

* * *

 _You will never be a god_

It sounded so much smoother in his head.

He feels that his sputtering may have detracted from the force of the delivery slightly. But Thanos probably understands the message, and Loki has more pressing things to worry about.

The crushing pain in his throat surges higher and larger, and he knows what it will end with.

Loki's own end: the last thing he will see is Thanos' face. The titan's voice will speak the final words he would hear.

The least Fate could do is give he and Thor a last goodbye, though they have tried far too many in the past.

Loki had hoped his real death would not be with his back turned to Thor.

The stars and the conflagrations gnawing on the remains of their escape ship start to look like candle lights someone is snuffing out one by one…

He is hazily aware of the smile on Thanos' face, and the way Thanos' grip tightens almost leisurely, because the titan has all the time in Yggdrasil to make Loki long for something as sweet as pain.

Loki's vision continues to blur and dim.

(Where is the sun now?)

He is hazily aware of the weak gasping sounds escaping his lips, and the way his struggling against the stranglehold has dwindled away weakly…

(Where is Thor?)

His throat…

The pain lancing up and down his spine and clouding his head finally explodes into something unbearable –

(He bears it still)

– And Loki keeps watching the titan smile. But he imagines Thor.

 _Is…_

 _this…_

 _…it?_

And then the darkness is,

finally,

complete.


	2. Chapter 2

_No resurrections this time_

The first two times Loki had hovered above Death's snatching hands, Thor had watched his brother blinking up at him with wide eyes. This time, they are already closed by the time Thor can get close enough to touch him. Gone before they can say goodbye.

(Again)

(The one time they really needed to)

Thor keeps his head bowed. He cannot bring himself to look down despairingly at Loki like that again. He hopes Loki looks at peace.

(He hopes he will be the one to kill the sorcerer for gagging him – as Loki had been gagged in New York – and taking away the chance for Thor to yell goodbye, yell anything, before Loki's ears stopped working)

He tries to hold on to his brother for as long as he can while everything crumbles and shakes around them –

(He hopes he will be the one to kill Thanos)

– But in the end they are ripped apart.

(Thor's heart quietly, finally, breaks in two)

His last glimpse of his brother: Loki's body buffeted away like a broken marionette doll in an ocean, into an inferno of blue and black.

(One half of Thor's heart is pulled into the fires after him)


	3. Chapter 3

_Which way was up?_

 _Where was the sun?_

 _Where was Thor?_


	4. Chapter 4

_Dead brother, huh?_

Thor finds it strangely hard to accept the rabbit-like captain will never know Loki any more than what Thor could convey in his short reply. Too little to ever encompass who Loki is, or was.

 _Father?_

(Dead)

 _Mother?_

(Stabbed by a Dark Elf)

 _Best friend?_

(Stabbed through the heart)

…

 _What else have I left to lose?_

* * *

Time is passing far too quickly.

It has been months or years – he had practically lost track – since Thor last saw his Midgardian friends. In every lull, whether they are talking or running or fighting Thanos and his Children, Thor almost says _I can't believe he's gone again._

But as he and his friends fight, they too each accumulate their own losses rapidly like the black dust gathering in every nook and cranny of the cliffs in Svartalfheim. Thor holds his tongue to trudge on like the rest of them. Anyway, Thor's friends would only care for the newly reopened abyss inside of him. He must remember that they would not care for Loki himself.

(Thor remembers his exchange with Erik Selvig before they faced Malekith:

 _Your brother's not coming, is he?_

Loki is… dead.

 _Oh thank god_ )

Thor holds his tongue.

* * *

 _I,_

 _Loki,_

 _Prince of Asgard,_

 _Rightful king of Jotunheim,_

 _God of Mischief,_

 _Odinson_

(Upon that, Thor's heart had hit the ground)

Nowhere in that list of aliases had the circumstances allowed a place for 'Brother'.

( _You're my brother, and my friend. Sometimes I'm envious, but never –_ )

Time speeds on.

* * *

Thor had wondered if Thanos would finally be the end of him, of them all. But Fate tugs him forward and lets time slip past him, like a fisherman pulling a hooked thrashing fish through the heavy water that drags over its scales.

As they each mourn their losses over the months, eventually comes the trickle of questions from his friends. Unbearable, and yet what Thor is secretly desperate for because stories are a way of keeping his family alive.

 _So what was Odin like?_

(A kind father full of lessons I did not always understand at the time)

 _Frigga?_

(She made everything seem better than it had to be)

 _What about your childhood friends?_

(Strong, valiant, loyal. Worthy of proper sendoffs I couldn't give them)

But they have yet to ask about Loki. Thor does not know how he would respond anyway.

* * *

 _He's gone. Again._ By this point, Thor can probably get away with saying it matter-of-factly, as if casually using a Midgardian saying, like _third time's the charm_. Thor had believed it the first two times and it had not been true, so maybe if he will just believe it again, Loki will return.

(Their mother's old words after Thor had caught her speaking with her youngest in his prison cell

 _I'd hoped by sharing my gifts with Loki that he could find some sun for himself_ )

But Thor cannot bring himself to believe his brother's permanent absence, despite what he might tell his friends.

( _I assure you, Brother, the sun will shine on us again_ )

It is starting to become too much.

(Thor knows Loki's last words to him will plague him forever)

But then, death might be the only way his brother would find the sun he had needed for so long.

* * *

It is chilly when Thor wakes. Through the thin blanket he can feel the midnight breeze floating in and Earth's moon staring down at him coldly through the open window. Despite the pearly orb outside, it seems unnaturally dark tonight.

In the dream, everything had turned out just fine. Thor's dream self had been trapped beneath the same twisted steel scraps of the ship, just as he really had that day, watching Loki struggle futilely as Thanos lifted him by the throat. But his binds were breakable, and he had thrown them off like they weighed little more than wet blankets, lunging forward to rip Loki from Thanos' grasp before the final moment could pass. Then he had somehow spirited himself and his brother away to safety, and everything was just fine…

But Thor now lies awake in the thick darkness with the remaining half of his heart pounding. Pounding and still aching even though it has been months since the – Loki's – final moment. He tries to stare through the gloom at where the ceiling must be, but cannot even discern how far away it is in this darkness.

Thor stares harder, trying to see an alternate future in which Loki returns straight after escaping Thanos, and lies nearby somewhere that Thor _knows_ of, asleep and safe. But it's too dark.


	5. Chapter 5

_No resurrections this time_

Every time Thor recalls that condemnation, he wants to resurrect Thanos to kill him a second, third, fourth, fifth time.

 _I assure you, Brother, the sun will shine on us again_

Whom should Thor believe more, a Mad Titan or a Liesmith?

Every time Loki's promise echoes in his memory, Thor wants to find every sun in and outside of Yggdrasil to search beneath it. If only time would allow, between the never-ending line of missions and crises that fall onto Thor's shoulders as if he stands beneath a waterfall.

And everyday, still he finds himself wondering where – if – Loki is.

(Come on already, Brother, many seasons have passed now since Thanos, if you're out there somewhere, why will you not show yourself?)

It is a small, faint, dreadful hope he wishes would just die out inside of him already – that his little brother had somehow found a way to save himself yet again and was biding his time somewhere. Waiting for the perfect moment to reveal himself to Thor so they could live and fight and live alongside each other again.

( _I thought you and I would fight side by side forever_ )

Mercifully, Thor does not feel this same awful hope for his other lost loved ones. They had been beyond trustworthy, and would have greeted death with lifted chins – not slick lies and hidden knives – the first time around. Despite his mourning for his father, his mother, his friends, his home, his people, his everything else, Thor can envision them in paradise. At well-earned, overdue peace. He can picture them in the versions of Valhalla etched in his brother's old textbooks and storybooks in colourful, shifting inks. He cannot see Loki at peace, only ever a worn-out body with closed eyes and a crushed throat that had let slip a promise that Thor was finding agonisingly impossible to let go of.

Sometimes, when the hope inside him grows far brighter than he ought to allow like an abandoned fire, Thor wonders that if maybe he tries to see the warfare through Loki's eyes, he will at last understand where Loki might be waiting.

(How would he benefit from hiding still? Which of these new foes would he avoid or trail? What would be his strategy?

What plan would be _worth_ all this damned _waiting_?)

But Thor cannot fathom it. He was never like Loki.

Would it be worse if Loki had escaped and resolved to never return to his brother?

As a barely repressed thought, this makes Thor feel ill, and afraid. As an actual possibility, it threatens to destroy whatever of his heart remains.

(But you promised the sun would shine on us again)

* * *

"Two flat whites, sirs?"

The young man in a neat black apron and a pencil tucked behind his ear holds out two tall paper cups capped with creamy foam. He looks vaguely out of place joining them on the uneven lawn in his polished shoes. He is not sure what is in a flat white exactly, but the toasty scent wafts up and warms Thor's nose invitingly.

"Sorry, we didn't order anything," Bruce smiles politely at the server. "Uh, we haven't even entered the café, actually."

The young man clearly comes from the bustling coffee shop beside the little communal garden in which Thor and Bruce wait, the pair of them standing in the shade of some waving trees Jane Foster had once told him were oddly named 'crabapples'. Whenever customers pass through the swinging doors, a buoyant tune flutters outside to join the cacophony of car horns and brisk footsteps.

"On the house, courtesy of the Golden Egg café." The man smiles proudly before disappearing back inside with a curious glance at them over his shoulder.

Through the building's glass walls, Thor can see a couple at the counter with their heads tilted towards each other. A few lone men and women in business suits pepper the iron-wrought chairs padded with multihued cushions, while a family of four is making a mess of a long table in the back corner. Everything looks normal, and safe.

"One of the perks of being superheroes in a big city, I guess," Bruce remarks dryly, sipping tentatively at his drink.

Thor's own coffee heats his palm through the smooth surface of the cup. "Better service than what Hulk would receive, I imagine," he replies.

"Not compared to Sakaar, from what you've told me."

He and Bruce continue waiting for the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent designated to meet them. Today, the air is mild with only a faint nip to it, different from the biting wind that had lashed the city as of late. As though Yggdrasil at last agrees that they need a break, if only in the form of nicer weather, and a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation that is not a global crisis. Thor returns to absently watching the café customers inside. At the long table in the back corner where the small family sits, the mother scolds her two young sons for tipping over the sugar jars. When the older-looking toddler affectionately pats the other on the back, Thor quickly looks away.

"Thor."

Bruce's voice is sombre. But it is the hesitance in it that makes Thor's stomach tighten.

He looks up as nonchalantly as he can, seeing how Bruce had evidently been eyeing him closely.

"You never did tell me," his friend starts, but clears his throat. Bruce resumes, "What…Loki…was like. As a brother, I mean. A friend. Before he was taken in by Thanos." Thor is not naïve enough to assume Bruce had warmed to Loki despite their teamwork against Hela or Thanos' apparent hand in Loki's invasion of Midgard; he is grateful his friend phrases it as mildly as 'taken in'.

Thor wants this conversation. He has no idea where to start and can feel the ever-present ache in his chest unfolding like a thunderstorm, but he does not know how else he can remember his little brother without all his recollections and affections corroding him from the inside out. "I didn't think it was a particularly longed-for topic."

Bruces sips his coffee again. "All I've known about him is what he did to New York, and that it was also something to do with Thanos. And that he helped us defeat Hela before giving Thanos the Tesseract to stop him taking your head." He pauses. "And that apparently Asgard has a much laxer attitude than many parts of Earth towards letting eight-year-olds play with knives. But I don't know if you've gotten to talk about him. In the way that you might want to, I mean. To me or anyone." As they speak, Thor finds they automatically pretend to casually observe the people shopping and eating. More than once does someone do a double take.

"Like I said, I thought he was one family member of mine that our friends wouldn't welcome anecdotes about." A plume of steam hits his face as Thor holds the milky concoction to his lips as if this posture will deflect the conversation.

Bruce shrugs. "It's not always for the listener's benefit to talk about your lost loved ones."

Thor still remembers the feeling of hunching under Thanos' hand on the combusting escape ship. He can recall the sensations of thick blood and sweat dribbling into his good eye and gathering under the eye patch, while the smoke and heat baked his airways and skin from all sides. He recalls seeing Loki's impassive face through pain-blurred vision while it felt like Thanos was searing every fibre and the spaces between of Thor's brain – right up until he heard his brother yell for Thanos to stop and discovered Loki did have sentiment after all.

( _Never doubt that I love you_ )

Thor slowly lets out a breath he realises had frozen inside his lungs. "You're wondering what was Loki like?"

Bruce waits. Thor continues casting his gaze around the thriving complex of cafés and shops. In the periphery of his vision, the two young boys play with the little mounds of golden brown sugar crystals while their mother's back is turned.

Thor's answer is heavy, like a unhappy memory. He wants it to just dissolve into the coffee.

"Not what you thought."

* * *

The first two times Loki had died, Thor had accepted it, grieved, and moved on. It has happened enough now that, despite Thanos' assurance of no more resurrections, Thor hopes Loki will return again.

But not enough for Thor to be utterly confident Loki will. Just enough for him to feel everyday like he is waiting. Just enough for it to hurt more.

* * *

There is a colourful play in the little communal garden the next time Thor strides past. He is heading towards a new rendezvous point to meet Banner again, somewhere further east in the city.

The performance seems to be a melodramatic rendition of the story's tragedy, and he had not intended to stop – he has no idea what a hamlet is anyway – but when Thor spots the actor in a laced doublet and hose lying on the ground with his friend holding onto him, he is suddenly part of the small audience clustered around the makeshift stage.

Thor stands there until he realises he is politely joining the smattered applause, while the lavishly clad actors and actresses bow before them. Despite that in the end he had paid no notice to the rest of the story. In his mind's eye, he sees a stage of black sand and white pillars in Asgard's playhouse, and if only if only if only he could shove that scrawny actor walking away and pin him down and force himself to transform back into –

Thor squeezes his eyes shut for just a second, and lets out a shaky, quiet breath. He forces himself to break away from the crowd – he is going to be late.

* * *

He wishes he had been more like his little brother. Just enough to have invented some way of baiting and evading death like only Loki could, but then to have suggested it to Loki himself in case Loki's own idea had any holes.

It has been years now, but Thor suddenly recalls how he had told Loki on the ship that he had the feeling everything would turn out just fine, before Thanos had appeared. So, he had made a broken promise to Loki too – it makes Thor want to curl up and clutch his head in his hands, and roar until his still-working lungs split.

Remembering the sensation of losing his grip on his brother's body for the last time – it makes Thor want to curl up and clutch his head in his hands, and weep.

Despite Thor's reluctance, the years amass into decades, and all the while his lungs keep working and his heart keeps beating. His face and hands grow more weathered, his body even stronger as he trains and works with old and new friends. It eventually becomes apparent which of his comrades have human lifespans untainted by serums, magic and any other wretched technology – Thor mourns them too. But accepts.

And still Loki never comes.


	6. Chapter 6

Thor had not been one to scrutinise himself in mirrors for much more than to check if his armour sat properly on his frame. Admittedly, he used to check if the wings of his old helmet were tilted and turned just right, before Loki would appear behind him laughing that a fashion slipup would be the littlest thing Thor's opponents would begrudge of him.

But one day, Thor notices the grey-white in his hair.

It is just starting to permeate the dark gold, like the first traces of frost edging the trees and grass to alert them to a coming winter. It makes him freeze – his reflection staring at him dumbly – and dread seizes his heart –

(The one half that did not disappear after his brother)

– because it means he truly is leaving Loki behind.

Over the years, against his better judgment, Thor peers into the mirror with more regularity than he would if only for vanity's sake. He never realised before how much he would hate the sight of seeing himself age. Thor had long accepted the idea of eventually becoming truly ancient like their father had, but now, every time he sees his reflection he cannot help but see Loki beside him.

With his image staring back through the glass, Thor thinks how his brother would look just the same. He still pictures this Loki, the version that was strangled to death, occupying the other half of the mirror. Pale face. Large eyes. Slanted eyebrows. Lanky frame.

(Familiar face, eyes that always saw Thor, eyebrows quirked to ask _what the Hel are you doing now, Brother?_ , a straightened back despite the toll their fights took on them)

He pictures this version because he cannot imagine what Loki would look like ageing alongside him, as his little brother should have been.

(Brother, look at how much older you are letting me become without you.

How can you not be back yet?)

But Thor knows the answer, and he knows he has always known. He cannot say when it happens exactly – if it the change is simply too gradual for him to notice – but the next time he wonders where – if – Loki is, he answers himself.

(It is because Loki is truly, irreversibly dead and no amount of ridiculous hope Thor has the capacity to feel will ever bring him back,

never never never again – )

* * *

Every morning in the years following Loki's death, Thor had looked at the sunrise, and then at his shadow cast upon the ground.

 _I remember a shadow_

 _Living in the shade of your greatness_

But he has not been able to find Loki anywhere in his shadow either.

* * *

The old dream returns again. It feels slightly odd, because he has not dreamt it in decades now despite his longing, or dread. But it arrives, and this time, instead of his dream self discarding his metal binds easily and whisking Loki away to safety just in time –

– Thor watches his dream self let Loki die –

– And cradle his brother's body to his chest as their escape ship disintegrates around them.

When Thor wakes, it is as cold and dark as it ever was. He curls up and clutches his head in his hands, and lets himself weep.

* * *

One day, Thor finds himself tearing the mirror off the wall and onto the floor. His friends find the shards, and no explanation. They see the old anguish in Thor's eyes, and do not ask for one.

Someone asks, tentatively, if it is because his appearance resurfaces the grief he felt for Odin. Thor nods untruthfully.

Like his strangled self had been, Loki's reflection lies broken upon the ground.

* * *

Thor still sometimes finds himself tracing his fingers along the decorative engraving of Loki's helmet on his armband.

 _I assure you, Brother, the sun will shine on us again_

That damned promise that of course Loki would not, could not, keep. Thor almost wishes he could forget it. Forget everything.

 _Which sun, Loki?_

But even now, Thor would ask – beg – the answer if he could, even just to humour his little brother's grand declarations.

 _Which sun?_

 _Because mine is starting to set._

* * *

Thor lies still, focusing on his chest rising and falling with shaky breaths. It is almost time. Though he had in no way succumbed to this fate like a meek lamb for slaughter, he finds that he does not really mind.

Thor had known how hard it is to let go.

But he had not known how long it would take.

(Loki's face still lingers whenever Thor closes his eyes)

Even as Thor lies there feeling his lungs and heart, finally, slowing to a standstill, he wonders if he ever really did.


	7. Chapter 7

**_Approximately 2500 years back..._**

* * *

 _Son?_

This must be it.

 _Son?_

The start of eternal torture.

 _…Son?_

Loki does not want to hear imitations of Frigga and Odin's voices, whether they are rough or as unreachable as anything Loki had ever wanted.

Thor's, even less so.

* * *

He does not feel his body, but there is the sensation of passing through something, like a doorway.


	8. Chapter 8

They find him in the garden.

Frigga remembers vividly her own Awakening in the very spot in which Loki arrives, warily surveying her light-filled surroundings before others had found her. She remembers the strange feeling of homecoming when she had taken her ancestors' hands and let them lead her along the trail to the lavish halls of Valhalla.

It had been Odin who had caught wind of Loki's – real – death mere minutes ago, but Frigga had hurried ahead down the winding cobblestoned pathway to the garden. There was some guilt for leaving Odin to catch up behind, but she had been unable to help herself. She had dreamt hungrily of seeing her youngest – he and Thor – again since her first day dead.

He looks out of place in his dark clothes and armour amid the cheerful greenery. He is exactly as she had beheld when watching him from their new realm.

There is that same feeling of homecoming when her son turns to meet her eye, and she whispers,

"Finally."

* * *

It is a different experience from waking.

With which Loki has had ample experience, largely thanks to countless days of training with peers who clearly had little qualms about wielding weapons with genuine force. He can still relive in his memory old jokes with Thor that he really ought not to be their council's best scholar given the number of blows to the head he had received during their adolescence.

There is no starting darkness, no gradual stirring until realising he can open his eyes to new sun-drenched scenery. With no recollection of any gradual emergence from unconsciousness, or any foggy sensation of having just woken, Loki simply finds himself standing in the garden.

Another glaring difference is the utter lack of pain. Testing his joints and neck gingerly as he appraises the strange realm, there is no strident agony in his spine or clouding ache in his skull from the grip around his throat tightening past breaking point. But Loki decides he prefers rousing from unconsciousness with a thumping headache and black eye. Whenever he had, eons ago, he had understood immediately where he was – on a sandy training field, in Asgard's Healing chambers, in a tent on some senseless journey into Asgard's wilder regions – with Thor standing over him smiling idiotically.

Clear daylight patters down from a sky that seems more _open_ than Asgard's – or that of any realm he had entered – ever had, as though the realms had been stacked on top of one another and this one the pinnacle. The cobblestoned pathway he stands on is a pale ribbon on the downy grass and moss that is dotted with mismatching trees, which range from regal pines to what look like cherry blossoms barely higher than his ankles. Tiny flowers form a delicate kaleidoscope. It reminds Loki of the gardens of Asgard's palace and public precincts, except as if someone had pushed the dimensions and hues and strictly trimmed borders through a wormhole, or if he were to peer through a pearly, warped lens. Excepting, also, is that it is deserted. Not even a distant bird disrupts the sky's canvas of blue and white gold.

He can hear the breeze skimming past serenely, like the palace servants quietly had in Asgard, lightly ruffling the tips of tree branches and lifting the perfume of dewy grass up to cool his nose. The whole atmosphere prompts the urge to make every blink and breath hushed, and reverent.

If this eccentric version of their old home is the start to his own Hel, he knows he ought to brace himself and his magic for whatever eccentric version of anything else he has ever cared for.

So he does just that when he hears the running footfalls.

* * *

It is inexpressible joy and sorrow at seeing him so much sooner than she could have.

And, she will not admit to Loki, relief.

(It had been apprehension driving her sprint to the garden – she does not know what she would have done if Loki had not appeared…)

(Between the dreams of reuniting with both her sons, she had been plagued with nightmares of only getting back Thor)

The way Valhalla is wedged in a fork of Yggdrasil's branches – they would not even be able to catch a glimpse of Loki in Hel below.

* * *

"Finally."

(That voice he has missed)

Loki watches Frigga reach towards him, palm up and waiting.

Suddenly Loki is several years younger, in a furnished prison cell, reaching out to take her hand.

Even if this is merely a deceptive start to infinite suffering, he resolves to not waste precious seconds of a Hel that at least pretends to offer reconciliation with the two figures before him.

(What else does he have left anyway?)

She does not fade this time; her touch is soft but solid and warm, even in death.

(Finally)

Behind Frigga, Odin's voice is exactly as like the ocean lapping against timeworn cliffs as Loki recalls.

"Let us show you around."


	9. Chapter 9

They show him nearly all they can. They take him to the rivers, the bridges, and the other gardens. They tour the stately courtyards that host games and every other outdoor pursuit of the residents of Valhalla. The mountain-like palace rises in the centre like the upward spray of a water fountain, lit by hundreds of thousands of lanterns after sundown for the nightly banquets that shame the old Asgardian celebrations.

She and Odin had agreed to save the ocean for last, at least for a day.

Frigga feels the twinge of guilt at keeping Loki further from Thor than he needs to be, even for a short while, but she had endured her son's absence for so long. If Loki first knew of the ocean and what came with it, she feared he would not care to see anything else.

* * *

It is a swaying crabapple tree under which they stand whilst in one of the courtyards. It feels almost wrong to be in his parents' company without Thor.

Loki will never get enough of his mother's voice: "I always knew the living dreamt of the dead…"

"As I dreamt of you both," he says.

"And your father and I of you, the first time."

(Loki stands on a gloom-soaked cliff top in Midgard with Thor:

 _I thought you dead._

 _Did you mourn?_ )

Frigga adds, "But I didn't know the dead dream of the living. I dreamt of you everyday still since arriving here, as did your father."

Despite the entertainment he knows constantly occupies the other courtyards, it is peaceful where they stand. From there, with their backs to the palace, they can see over the same little garden in which they arrived. They can nearly pretend it is Asgard.

Loki starts, "I never thanked you earlier…"

Odin raises his eyebrows lightly while Frigga asks, "For?"

"When my punishment for attacking Midgard was changed from execution, I was saved in death too."

From there, the garden might even be mistaken for the private precinct Frigga had used to own.

(Loki realises it is safe now to unlock old memories of her trying to teach he and Thor to tend to plants when they were young; his mind can be filled with things besides plans for survival.

He is nearly free)

Loki elaborates, "If I had died then, I would have gone straight to Hel instead, with not even a bone to gnaw on."

It is not often his parents are silenced completely by something he says. It is Odin who at last responds, "We would have still dreamt of and loved you even then." More heavily, "And I hope in time I would have realised my mistake."

And suddenly Odin's hand is on his shoulder. How the old Allfather can still make Loki feel like a child. "We would have still loved you even then," Odin repeats.

Loki basks in this knowledge for a few moments.

But he asks in a murmur, "Would Thor?"

* * *

Frigga lets the silence stand with them under the crabapple tree, a palpable fourth presence. Though she knows Odin had often taken Loki's silences as guilty admissions or time for refining a lie, when it had been just she and her youngest, they had let the silences blossom. She catches Odin's eye, and knows he agrees it is time.

"…Would you like to see him?"

The previous twinge of guilt swirls in her stomach as the understanding flickers in Loki's eyes – they had kept this from him the whole time since he had arrived. Albeit barely two days have passed, but she promises silently it will be the very last secret she and Odin will ever keep from him.

Loki's eyes are burning holes into them. "…From up here?"

"Valhalla sits in higher branches that give it prime position for us to view the living worlds. You just need to find the right place." She hopes their reasoning mollifies him: "We wondered if we took you to the ocean first, you would not wish to return for a long time to let us show you the rest of the realm. We wanted to give you at least an introduction to this afterlife that was not full of wondering about your brother."

Frigga does not know if she should have expected an outburst from Loki for not telling him sooner.

But Loki's voice is only soft. It hurts more.

"Can we?"

Both of them take his hand this time as he lets them lead the way.


	10. Chapter 10

**Hey, thank you, to you who have read, reviewed, Favourited or Followed this so far (including those who configure their settings so that I can't personally reply to your reviews)! I'd say it's what keeps me writing, but I'd probably still try to finish and post this regardless – I just really, really appreciate your support. So far, I had been going to drink coffee each time I'd seen the email notifications of Favourites, reviews, etc. but they hype me up so much that I switched to tea.**

 **By the way, just FYI: this story won't be over until I say in the Author's Notes "The End"**

* * *

Loki's head thrums on the possibility of seeing how Thor fared after Loki's stab at the Mad Titan's throat.

He wonders if it will be like the aftermath of his near-death in Svartalfheim.

(How fares Thor, is he happy, does he grieve – ?)

If watching Thor move on once more without him would be easier to watch than Thor mourn again.

In the end, Loki knows the peace that he wants for his brother.

 _I, Loki, Prince of Asgard,_

 _Rightful king of Jotunheim,_

 _God of Mischief,_

 _Odinson_

 _Swear to you my undying fidelity_

(Really, Loki had not been lying. Depending on whom they thought he had been addressing)

He knows the peace that he wants for Thor.

For himself, he is unsure if the ocean will bring peace of mind or undying unrest.

* * *

The pathway to the ocean is different from the route to the garden. It disappears behind the citadel like a well-kept secret. The glittering sea itself is like any other, almost reminiscent of the beaches of Asgard and Midgard he and Thor used to frequent in their childhood.

The ocean floor is Valhalla's thinnest layer between the realm's inhabitants and the lower worlds. Odin and Frigga show Loki how he must wade in until waist deep. With the weathered soles of his shoes sinking into the sand, the waters let him see his brother's life.

And, despite his better judgment, Loki does, every day. Thanks to Valhalla's ceaselessly clear weather, he must blink against the splinters of sunshine refracting off the dancing waves like sprays of bullets from machine guns.

It is inexpressible guilt and relief at seeing Thor lament for him for so much longer than he could have.

(Because it had been both of them that had thought they would fight side by side forever)

His first few glimpses of his brother: missions with S.H.I.E.L.D., coffee with Bruce Banner, a play in a park. And, eventually, time to truly mourn. Loki wonders if it is just wishful thinking that Thor seems to dwell on his little brother the most.

Valhalla's sea floor a few yards from the shoreline is already thin enough for its residents to peer into the realms below – more than once does Loki wonder what is possible if he were to wade in deeper…

* * *

 _Frigga is wary of the glint in Loki's eye almost as much as she knows Loki is of the one in Thor's._

 _"We cannot return, Son."_

 _She touches his cheek gently._

 _(Apologetically)_

 _"Valhalla's barriers are indeed thinner the deeper into its ocean you travel, but…"_

 _Loki is quick to shake off whatever idea he had, or at least is quick to appear so. "I know, Mother."_

* * *

Thanks to Thanos' interception of their flight to Midgard, the colossal banquet chambers are dominated with Asgardians each night, for a time – the feasts become reminiscent of those in the old Asgardian citadel, as if the realm itself made it to Valhalla too, with creatures of other worlds interspersed across the long tables that are lined with outlandish dishes and drinks. The din is slightly different, though just as raucous as those Loki is well acquainted with: an ever-shifting patchwork of musical and abrasive languages. He hears a siren's rich laugh or a throaty dwarven drinking song peppering each evening every so often. Filaments of starlight stream through the high windows and weave with the warm lamplight and chatter.

He is beyond happy to sit at the same table as Frigga and Odin again. Like them, he lifts a crystalline glass with the frequent toasts made to the loved ones they have left behind.

(Though he knows from watching Thor – his older brother feels he is the one leaving Loki behind)

Still, he wonders if anyone else in Valhalla already tires of these festivities.

* * *

When he is not at the ocean, Loki busies himself in Valhalla.

He has discovered the library, crammed with books that had been either long lost from Asgard's collections – when they had existed – or burnt to nothing when he had awoken Surtur. He is not sure yet if these are the actual volumes or if Valhalla simply provides what he wants.

(Though if Valhalla truly did, he would be finding more than books)

He finds spacious rooms the perfect sizes for practicing his magic, with Frigga.

He sees Odin daily, and they talk. That they can talk is more than enough, or at least a start.

Loki busies himself in Valhalla. His pride, if nothing else, refuses to let him pine for life – for anyone still alive – although he now probably spends as much time waist deep in seawater as he does on dry land. He has always known how to be alone. Sharing the same realm as Frigga and Odin now leaves him with no reason to not get by.

But, sometimes, he finds the banter at the banquet tables lacking. He turns to his left, to his right, and cannot find Thor to smile at and let take over the conversation.

Or, sometimes, he looks out one of the arched windows of the citadel, and his gaze passes over the grounds and angelic skies like they are only gravel and smog. Because it has now been years since he has witnessed weather other than nonstop sunshine.

(Does it never rain in Valhalla?)

(In Asgard, it had been Thor's storms that gave him respite from the endless sun)

Sometimes Loki wonders if, like his older brother, he will feel every day like he is waiting for the rest of Thor's life.

* * *

It has been a while since his death day, but it is the first time Loki visits the ocean at midnight. Sleep is a luxury for the dead – he is reluctant to waste precious afterlife with his eyes shut. Besides, this way he is not drowning in the unceasing sunshine glaring off the waves. Valhalla's moon sets the sea aglow, and every foam-crowned wave is like a snowy mountain peak. Each wave break sends fragments of foam spinning across the surface of the deep emerald water – it reminds him of Asgardian funerals of fallen soldiers in ornate vessels, skimming across their old ocean. As he catches flashes of Thor's life below, Loki lets his palms rest on top of the cool water, as if he is simply on the other side of a mere window, waiting for Thor to notice and let him through.

"Be patient."

Frigga's voice skips over the water like a light stone. Loki turns to her slowly so as not to disturb the images below the incandescent surface. He says nothing, because he does not need to – he does not bother hiding from his expression the heaviness that settles on him at the end of each day of his afterlife.

"Be patient." She repeats it almost remorsefully.

His mother carefully steps into the water. As she wades in, the skirt of her dress fans and undulates beneath the surface like translucent silver seaweed or fish fins. "Let him live his life as only he can. You will see your brother again."

"I know, Mother." Loki does not comment on how unworried she is about Thor reaching Valhalla upon death. Since his own arrival, Loki could read how relieved she and Odin had been to see him, despite how hard they tried to hide their previous fears of him falling to Hel instead.

(He does not mind, he had felt the same, the only thing in his eyes that Hel might have over Valhalla is more of a change from the incessant warm sunlight)

She places a gentle palm on his cheek. It makes him realise his gaze has already slipped back to searching the sea depths for more signs of his brother's life –

(How is Thor, how does he live, is he happy, how does he grieve now – )

– before he pulls his attention back to her. He raises an eyebrow. "I have no intention of sending sabotage to hasten his arrival, if that's what you're worried about. I did enough of the sort while we lived."

He knows she knows he only jokes, but there is a slight stab of regret as he detects the pain tighten her expression, even in the flecked moonlight.

As they stand there, he lets a hand slip beneath the surface, as if to snag one of the images while they flicker past like shy fish. As if he can reach down and into whichever living realm Thor occupies now.

(If his hand could reach that far, Loki might try further, he might sink to his knees…)

* * *

 _He finds himself backing out of the swirls of saltwater. The soaked hems of his coat hang heavy above the damp sand, as though trying to get him to stay and keep watching._

 _It is not that his brother is living on without him. Not even that Thor is finally moving on, or is at least able to pretend to._

 _It is that, this evening, Loki has witnessed Thor and his alien motley of allies find a way of resurrecting their other slain friends._

 _And evidently Loki is not among them._

 _It is not exactly anger he feels as he traces the cobblestoned path back to the halls, but it is one of the few times he has felt envy for anyone besides Thor._

* * *

She sees the shadow stalk past the banquet hall's wide double doorway, steadfastly ignoring the ceiling-high merriment and babble filling the chamber. Frigga has never seen the shadow in all her time so far in Valhalla, but it gives her a sense of déjà vu.

How like their old life in Asgard this might turn out to be until Thor arrives.

She knows without asking that Loki must have returned from the ocean.

What had he seen this time?

(She had never thought it possible before to feel heartbreak in Valhalla)

She catches Odin's eye – it had been fixed on where Loki had passed moments earlier. Frigga is unsure if it is meant to be comforting or merely a reminder when he murmurs to her, "We always knew it would be like this if one of them died much sooner than the other."

She can see the unadulterated message in Odin's words in his expression.

(They always knew it would be like this if Loki died much sooner than Thor)

Thor would have his childhood friends in Valhalla. Thor would thrive on the feasting and sport Valhalla had to offer. Thor would not be totally lonely in an afterlife without his brother.

Frigga replies, "It makes it no easier to watch."

* * *

The water feels as cool as always through the layers of his black armour. He thinks briefly how he has no more need for his armour ever again.

"My child."

From behind him, Odin's voice is soft enough to match the twilight settling over the waves.

The breeze shifts a few locks of hair across Loki's face as he turns to his father standing at the shoreline, just as Frigga had several nights earlier. In death, his father appears so much more alive, and Loki cannot help but feel gladdened by it.

"Of course you would be one of those to mourn whilst in the fabled halls of Valhalla."

Odin is garbed in the same kinds of clothes Loki is accustomed to seeing the Allfather in from their previous life. But without Gungnir to occupy one hand, his father's stance is less imperial. And, if Loki were a child again, it would mean Odin had both hands free to hold both his and Thor's.

"I'm not in mourning." Loki slowly wades out of the water until he is barely ankle deep. "But this place only promises unending festivities, games, and pretty gardens. I'm unsurprised I haven't been completely content unlike many of the others here."

Odin sighs. Funnily, he looks more alive now that he is dead, but the sound still makes him seem like their old father again. "Be patient, Loki. Let him live his life as only he can. You will see him again."

"I know, Father." They stand facing the calling waves for a wordless minute. It is the most peaceable silence they have shared in long time. "You asked Mother to see me some nights ago."

Like the night Frigga had spoken with him, Loki feels a consoling hand on his cheek.

Odin replies, "I thought you would accept more comfort from her, than I."

"You know, Father, I would have accepted more comfort from you in life, had you offered it to me."

"I know, Loki." That sigh of Odin's again. It joins the little posies of sea foam dancing across the sparkling dark blue around them. "It saddens me that it took a whole lifetime for me to realise."

Loki glances away from the purpling horizon – he realises he is not on Odin's blinded side. "Well." He takes the last step out of the water. Odin barely reaches his shoulder height now. "I suppose we have the afterlife now to keep trying."

He nearly smiles. Odin's eye might have caught it, because Odin's own expression softens further.

After another slow minute, Odin says, "I no longer fall into the Odinsleep here. Frigga told me how, on that fateful day I did sleep and you became Asgard's king, you had yelled for guards to help you care for me. How scared you were for me. While in Valhalla, I have wondered how terrified you must have been to take to the throne that day with your brother and myself gone so suddenly."

"It wasn't exactly the most uplifting experience I'd ever had, despite the overwhelming support I had from our Gatekeeper and Thor's friends." How much easier their silences are now that neither have a life – or responsibility of an entire kingdom's lives – to endanger. Loki says quietly, as if testing the air, "But I still could have done it, at least until you returned."

Odin turns to face him, almost tenderly. Suddenly Loki is several years younger, clinging onto the handle of a spear.

"I know, Loki."


	11. Chapter 11

**Thank you for making it this far into the story...! I wish I could get to know you better, or send you a gift, or something. This is the second last chapter. Hopefully you enjoy it too.**

 **I realised there was a typing error in Chapter 10, now fixed. It should have read "although he now probably spends as much time waist deep in seawater as he does on dry land. He has always known how to be alone."**

 **Also, my apologies but I realised I lied in my author's notes in Chapter 1 – I did end up making some kind of prediction of Avengers 4 or allude to using Time (or Reality or something) to bring back a lot of the people who died in Infinity War (the part in the previous chapter starting** **with " _He finds himself backing out of the swirls of saltwater_ ").**

 **Anyway, off you go.**

* * *

Almveig holds her arms out for balance – it is only on the pale blue cobblestones she wants to tread this time as she and her grandfather pass Valhalla's famous beaches. It is her favourite trail in Valhalla, this one that branches off the pathway to the seaside, because the stones that pave it are a nice hodgepodge of soft blue, white and an almost-purple grey.

As usual, she glances curiously, wistfully, to her right as the shoreline peeks at her through the trees. She hopes that next time they take her to the beach, they will let her go swimming, for once – it is not as if she can drown or be attacked by a vicious sea beast, in this realm. As usual, her grandfather takes her hand, as if she would otherwise make a sudden dash to the rippling stretch of blue-green.

As usual, she sees the man in the ocean.

He is always there if they pass near twilight, a single unmoving stake in the water. Always, he faces the horizon, motionless, and bows his head as if deep in thought. With his long black hair and long black clothes, she had thought the first few times she had noticed him that he was a shadow-wraith of some sort.

Maybe he is why her grandfather and aunty refuse to let her enter the waters. She frowns at the man, though he cannot see her, silently willing him to stop hogging the beach.

She tugs at her grandfather's hand, which is still wrapped firmly around her small one. "Who is he, Grandpa?" Her grandfather's gaze follows the line of her pointing finger.

"The last prince of Asgard," her grandfather is uncharacteristically unsmiling. "His name is Loki, and his brother Thor was the last king, but is still in the realms of the living."

Almveig frowns again. "What's Asgard?"

Her grandfather's grip guides her along a little faster, pulling the beach out of view. "Yggdrasil used to have nine realms on its branches for a long time, before one of them, Asgard, was destroyed in a great fire called Ragnarok."

Almveig nods over this. "Is Loki unfriendly? Is that why I can't go swimming?"

She readies her hinting: "If you or Aunty got him to leave the beach, would I be allowed to go?"

Her grandfather sighs, but more indulgently. "No, Almveig. And I would not advise you to ask him to, either."

"Why not?" She pushes out her lower lip slightly. "He can't be a prince anymore if Asgard is gone. And he's not alive anymore either."

Her grandfather just sighs again before taking her further along, the last of the ocean slipping out of her view.

* * *

 _Loki still remembers his promise to Thor –_ I assure you, Brother, the sun will shine on us again _– as clearly as the Valhallan sky._

 _(And he meant it, he had meant it, somehow)_

 _The first time he had scanned the sea for the flickers of Thor's life, his upper half baking in the afternoon sunrays spilling on top of the ocean like a layer of oil on water, he had said aloud to no one, "This is not what I damn well meant."_

* * *

Despite that time does not – need not – matter to the dead, the next two and a half thousand years tick by more slowly for Loki than he would have preferred. He witnesses two and a half thousand sunrises, and shields his eyes from each one's glare that is never tempered by storm clouds or rain.

After the daylight fades enough for the tide to shed its blinding coat for the day, he makes do with stealing disjointed glances of the living. He sees the inevitable wars, and fleeting celebrations. People he knew, had fought, and lied to.

(Little flecks of white-grey in blond hair)

He sees them all working and laughing. They gain new friends that come and go like the shooting stars he used to observe from the Bifrost eras and eras ago, with Thor.

(A broken mirror, lying awake in the empty witching hours, clenching his eyes shut when Thor thinks no one is looking)

Loki has not slept in two and a half thousand years. Frigga is probably right – the dead could dream of the living. But why would he try to dream, when he can visit the ocean instead?

Among the glimpses of life, he watches Thor evolve – without him, without him, how differently would Thor have turned out had Loki been there still? – like his older brother had supposedly begun to change once upon a time, after opening his eyes to see Jane Foster kneeling over him. But Loki is relieved that he, two and a half thousand years later, at least seems to preserve the parts of him that Loki had always loved and detested the most. The parts that had always made him Thor.

(There is a secret guilt Loki tries to ignore – he is comforted that Thor never marries, or fathers any children to fill up his heart-space; Jane Foster had been bad enough)

Despite that time does not – need not – matter to the dead, the next two and a half thousand years tick by very slowly. Loki witnesses two and a half thousand Valhallan sunrises. His stilled heart sinks at every one.

(If he ever hoped that one of those days Thor would find a way to resurrect him too, he makes do with disappointment)

* * *

If the realm could age, the cobblestoned trail to the ocean would be well worn with Loki's footprints. But today, as always, it is as unmarked as on his first day dead. The sand is similarly unblemished, as if Valhalla's occupants could not possibly want for anything else.

Loki can recite in his head a visit to the ocean as flawlessly as any text or theory he had ever studied in his lifetime, because he has had two and a half thousand years of practice, and little ever changes.

On his way to the shoreline, he will leave footprints in three different sands – fine powdery white, supple gold, then compact brown – that the brackish wind will clear up within the hour, even somehow the damp tracks pressed like thumbprints into children's clay.

The first step into the sea – the water will be five eighths of an inch up his boot heels.

The second step in – it will almost meet his ankles.

The third – he notes the short distance away the sun is from kissing the horizon goodnight, or how most of the stars are already winking (more than there would be at this time of evening in the old Asgard or any other realm, because there are no clouds to soften the sky).

Stopping at the thirteenth step – invisible currents will weave around his legs. A breeze will tousle his hair, tangling it with salt; Loki has half-buried memories of court members absently, annoyingly, patting his toddler self's head in flimsy attempts to make him smile.

He searches the nearby depths for signs of any sea creatures, but without worry – it is not as if anything can drag him down, and if it did, he might be willing to see how far they can go.

He still places his palms atop the liquid plane before him, almost unthinkingly, like he will try to break through and tumble into the visions of the realms below when they appear.

His mind had long ago discarded the sensation of suffocating – and his body the need to breathe – but he still takes in lungfuls of the briny air.

The canvas of water looks like a cut gemstone each time – a sapphire, when dusk properly falls – but empty, until he concentrates and makes something out of the nothing between the sea's surface and sandy floor.

It will take anywhere from three to twelve seconds for images to start to show. A few times in the first month, Loki had thought for a moment they were sea animals unburying their heads from the sand, and he had leant forward to greet them.

Today, as he waits,

the thirteenth second ticks by –

(The impatience usually starts to bud at the tenth)

– and the nothingness in the water persists.

(The twentieth second: the impatience duplicates itself before spawning other sentiments that Loki calmly breathes through and buries)

As he concentrates harder, tries and retries,

and breathes,

he wonders if Valhalla has somehow decreed he shall no longer watch over life, the living, his brother. Like the realm thought this is not what he should be spending his afterlife on. Not even at the distance he is held at, that barely gives him anything, that makes it feel like trying to recollect the taste of something he has never eaten, while he is starving, as always –

(Would that be a good or bad thing?)

(Frigga and Odin's impossible advice – _be patient_

They had always expected so much of Loki, even in death)

Even if it is for the best, it is still most definitely more painful at present.

Loki's head cranes over the water before him, seeing only his own reflection staring back at him, as young and as pale since the day he died. A droplet hits the skin of the sea, mercifully granting him victory of the unwelcome staring contest. Loki had not felt the tear coming at all. He has not cried in two and a half thousand years – maybe he no longer feels it, even if he does weep. He has not cried in two and a half thousand years, because he busies himself in Valhalla, because he refuses to let himself pine for life, because he has always known how to be alone, because sharing the same realm as Frigga and Odin now leaves him with no reason to not get by.

Because, against all expectations, he, _Loki_ , made it into _Valhalla_ so really he should be content and at peace and happy for Thor who had reclaimed the previously fallen friends that he could, not standing here waist deep in an ocean thinking about walking deeper and deeper to find out how thin the barriers of Valhalla could –

A second and a third droplet patter down.

Loki brings his hands up to wipe the tears off his cheeks although he had already swished his hands through the saltwater and is only adding to the dampness.

Until he realises the pitter-pattering is all around him.

Is someone else crying?

Loki raises his head slowly. One of death's few niceties is that this gives him no ache in his neck joints.

He is standing motionless in a blank ocean that is being drummed with thousands of silvery raindrops.

It sounds like an entire palace worth of shattering windows, or applause, or the echoes of footfalls of someone running to see him.

Then there is the rumble of thunder overhead.


	12. Chapter 12

_Brother?_

Thor's ears no longer work.

 _Brother?_

And yet he can hear someone calling.

 _…Brother?_

Is this supposed to be Valhalla's version of mercy?

Thor's ears no longer work, and he cannot move his hands, but he would cover his ears if he could. He does not want cheap imitations of Loki's voice if his real brother dwells in a Hel he no longer deserves. If that is all the both of them can get.

* * *

It is a different experience from waking.

Thor recalls his dying breaths shuddering in and out of him like rundown trains through old tunnels, while his eyes had drifted closed. But he cannot recall noticing amber-red colouring the backs of his eyelids like they are shut against bright sunlight. He cannot pinpoint the moment of opening them again, and seeing the garden.

Even as he stares around himself curiously, Thor dips into ancient memories. This is less like waking, and more like being teleported alongside someone, a part of a practical joke they had shared –

(That one time their joke went awry because Loki accidentally transported them right in front of Frigga and Odin, who had both roared at them until they thought their ears would bleed)

Thor even feels strong again, as if teleported back centuries ago too.

He knows where he is, that Frigga and Odin and his friends must be waiting for him now. That finally finally finally he can embrace his father, and see his mother smile again. Thor can finally see his family again.

( _I assure you, Brother, the sun will –_ )

Most of them.

( _Brother, the sun will –_ )

Even in death, someone - the same one - will still be missing.

( _Brother –_ )

Even in death, Thor still has to bring that damned promise with him.

( _Brother –_ )

His eyes stay dry, but he lets the clouds roll overhead.

* * *

Thor is visible through the gaps in the drenched trees, through the falling clouds. His back is to the direction from which Loki approaches, but it is definitely Thor.

He is so close. Loki is so close to meeting his brother again.

Still out of Thor's view, Loki slows.

(It has been so long)

He can see his brother looking around himself curiously, his blond hair darkened by the rain and streaked with white-grey. If Loki calls out, Thor would hear him. Thor would turn around, Thor would see him, Thor would be so happy to see him again.

(Are they still the same?)

So many things could still go wrong, even in Valhalla. And in Valhalla, there is nowhere else to go.

Loki holds still, behind a curtain of creeping vines.

No way out like death, which had always washed their shared slate clean, had always resurrected Thor's forgiveness for Loki, so what if –

(What if Loki ruins things again?)

What if his brother meets him again, if Thor is happy to see him, if they start over, what if –

What if –

* * *

"Why the rain, Brother?"

Thor turns toward the offhand voice. Someone is moving around the greenery to appear at the curve in the footpath.

"…I didn't know if you were coming." Thor's tone is as casual as Loki's, as if they are attending a party.

He sees his little brother almost smile through the sheets of rain.

"Wouldn't miss this for the worlds."

* * *

He meets Thor's eye.

( _Never doubt that I love you_ )

And he can see everything.

* * *

Thor feels his face split into an impossibly joyful grin, which channels cold raindrops into the corners of his mouth.

"Besides," Loki says as he closes more of the white cobblestoned distance between them, "I still have a promise to keep. Didn't I tell you the sun would shine on us again? Although – " Loki glances up at the veins of lightning above them. It flickers like a pulse restarting. " – I see you've decided to make things difficult."

Thor waits for Loki to look back at him.

(Familiar face, eyes that always saw Thor, eyebrows quirked to ask _what will you do now, Brother?_ , a straightened back because the toll their fights took on them is long gone)

No doubt they will hug each other eventually, but Thor finds himself placing a hand behind Loki's neck – their gesture from millennia ago.

(The implicit second half: it is complete when Loki smiles back)

It is unclear who says it first – they can barely hear it over the sound of rain and thunder. But Thor knows the word will stay with him forever.

"Brother."

* * *

 **The End. Finally. Again, t** **hank you for making it this far into the story! I've temporarily run out of new ways to say "I can't tell you how much it means to me."**

 **This fic ignores things like mentioning the Warriors Three or Heimdall, or the fact that there would be lots of people visiting the ocean, or maybe there's some kind of Valhallan magic that makes each visitor perceive the ocean as deserted whenever they go, or something. I was going to try explain that stuff, but found it disrupted the flow of the story a bit too much.**

 **Also, I didn't intend originally for Loki's side of this fic to become that angsty. Now I've got a document full of half- and fully-written comedic scenes and lines that were cut out. That Pinterest link I included in the author's notes at the start of chapter 1 is no longer a total spoiler for this story, heh.**

 **A 'by the way' to the people who said they liked the first few and last chapters/sections: I'd actually been jotting specific lines and ideas for those long before Infinity War, because I thought the phrasings sounded good, but hoping dearly that Loki would not actually die… And then comes along Infinity War… So I don't know if I'm happy or distraught about being able to finally use those lines.**

 **Lastly, if you have any recommendations for non-romantic Loki-Thor fanfictions post-Infinity War that you wouldn't mind sharing with me (via a review/PM), I would be over the moon the receive them!**

 **Thank you again for supporting this story ~**


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